As Europe copes with surge of crossings in Mediterranean, new report argues far deeper insight is needed into migrant decision-making and smuggler business model

The report, Before the boat: Understanding the migrant journey, makes the case that policymakers are making decisions ‘while in the dark’ about the decision-making process and the assessment of risk that migrants face at every step of the journey. They also lack detailed insight about the business model of the smuggling networks that are delivering often desperate people to Europe’s doorstep in exchange for significant remuneration, argue authors Jacob Townsend and Christel Oomen of Farsight, a Brussels-based social enterprise with a focus on migration that has organised interviews with thousands of migrants and would-be migrants.

Families, Relationships and Societies and Voluntary Sector Review have recently been accepted for coverage on Scopus. Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, and acceptance for inclusion is a mark of high quality.

Read more about gender and education in relation to achieving the second Millennium Development Goal with free article access. Established to achieve universal primary education, progress has been made towards this goal, showing the value of a unifying agenda underpinned by goals and targets.

To support Mental Health Awareness Week taking place this year between May 11-17, read the articles on the theme of Mindfulness. Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment, without getting stuck in the past or worrying about the future. Mindfulness can be practiced anywhere at any time. Read these Mindfulness articles for free.

New to Routledge: Self & Society: An International Journal for Humanistic Psychology

To commemorate the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Psychotherapy Research, the Editors Chris Muran & Wolfgang Lutz have looked back over the twenty-five years of the journal offering free access to the most cited articles. Please click here to access.

Indian immigrants represent the second-largest origin group in the United States, accounting for 4.7 percent of the total foreign-born population. Generally high-skilled and highly educated, more than half of Indian immigrants have arrived since 2000 and largely attain green cards through employment-based pathways. Indians account for 70 percent of H-1B petitions and are the second-largest group of international students in the United States.

The 2015 UK General Election was tipped to be one of the most unpredictable ever, however, the main issues such as Europe, Trident, Immigration and the NHS were always going to be fiercely debated by the party leaders. Read a free article collection of over one hundred papers and five Special Issues to make research into fascinating election even easier and more enjoyable.

Visit the Virtual Special Issues collated by the Editors, Jeremy Richardson and Berthold Rittberger.

Focus On: National Elections Free Collection

Take a look at Focus On: National Elections research collection – a wide assortment of free access articles which makes research into national electoral practices and issues. The collection is collated by region; Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania and The Americas. It is free until the end of the year and will be updated regularly.

Just who is responsible for saving – or not saving – the lives of the hundreds of migrants who perish each year while trying to cross the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe is the focus of a new study in the Journal of Human Rights. Click here to start reading now.

Florida Atlantic University and the University of Central Florida have teamed up to gather a range of pamphlets and other materials concerning socialist, communist, and leftist views on a host of topics, from Marxist economics to world pacifism to anti-colonialism. The digitized collection features authors from the United States, the former USSR, India, Korea, and other countries, with archival material written primarily in the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries. Readers may like to select Browse the Collection to begin. This will pull up nearly 2,000 documents, which can then be sorted by Title, Creator, Subject, and Date. The documents may also be searched by selecting Refine, and then using the Search Text box. Amazingly, historical documents such as “Woman’s place in the fight for a better world,” a 1947 publication from Elizabeth Gurley Flynn of the Communist Party of the United States of America, can be downloaded in PDF format.

Abstract: Mandibular condylar cartilage (MCC) possesses a unique multizonal structure to perform its function as a lubricating and load-bearing surface in the TMJ and as a growth plate cartilage. Trauma and/or pathogenesis of the MCC, which has limited capacity for regeneration, are significant causes of morbidity in human beings. Thus, tissue engineering may provide an ideal solution, but current zone-specific information is limited to a small set of genes and proteins. Resolving functional and phenotypic differences between cell populations of the MCC is important to understand mechanisms of homeostasis and pathogenesis. In addition, the identification of zone specific differential gene expression is useful in tissue engineering approaches to recapitulate the native zonal architecture.

The aim of our study is to obtain new insights into the characterization of MCC cells by investigating gene expression profiles of individually isolated MCC zones. The question that arises: is this zonal-based investigation a promising approach or just an overcomplicated strategy?

Presenter: Miss Ren Chong, PhD Candidate (1:15 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.)

Title: A randomized controlled trial of a laser-aided orthodontic treatment for patients with periodontitis

Abstract: The objective of this double-blind randomized controlled trial is to assess the effects of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in orthodontic patients with periodontitis on pain, periodontal inflammation, alveolar bone remodeling and dentin sensitivity. Thirty-five nonsmoking patients (male or female, 18-60 years old) with controlled chronic periodontitis will be recruited. After insertion of the first archwire, one side of the arch will be randomly assigned to repeated LLLT (940nm, continuous mode and energy density: 3.57 J/cm2) and the other side to placebo laser. Following parameters will be recorded on selected time-points during the 12-month follow-up: visual analogue scale, bite force, cytokines in gingival crevicular fluid, bacteria levels in supragingival plaque, clinical parameters and cone-beam computed tomography. This study will provide first-hand evidence for the incorporation of LLLT in adjunctive orthodontic treatment for patients with chronic periodontitis.